Diaries tell their little tales with a directness, a candor, conscious or unconscious, a closeness of outlook, which gratifies our sense of security. Reading them is like gazing through a small clear pane of glass. We may not see far and wide, but we see very distinctly that which comes within our field of vision.

Men who believe that, through some exceptional grace or good fortune, they have found God, feel little need of culture.

The least practical of us have some petty thrift dear to our hearts, some one direction in which we love to scrimp.

Just as we are often moved to merriment for no other reason than that the occasion calls for seriousness, so we are correspondingly serious when invited too freely to be amused.

the pleasure of possession, whether we possess trinkets, or offspring - or possibly books, or prints, or chessmen, or postage stamps - lies in showing these things to friends who are experiencing no immediate urge to look at them.

No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.

Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature.